Just two short months after the official announcement from Wizards of the Coast about a new D&D edition, gamers are eager for any information about the new incarnation of the game that’s made the industry what it is today.  As expected,  the guys at Comic Issues are no exception. With Andrew still absent, Darran, Daryck, and Anthony spend the podcast talking about the news released, the rumors that fall out of mills, and what they’d personally like to see from the brand that they’ve loved.

The guys also discuss critical topics, such as as why The Touch is an amazing song, or if people who dress up as satyrs could be considered Furries.  Darran also has a big announcement this week that he saves for the end.

Game On!

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The following contains the concluding part to chapter three, the penultimate chapter in the Prelude.  Following the next chapter, the regular narrative line of the story begins, chronicling many more regular characters (my friends’ PCs) and the events surrounding them during actual gameplay.  Thomtham has just roared at his old friend, and Pawluk retracts his comments.  Here, Pawluk and Thomtham conclude their dinner conversation, and much is left unanswered regarding the fate of “The Dark Child.”  Was his advent boon or omen?  Only time will tell…

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Thanks for coming back to Dr. DM and helping me relive the campaign!  For the remainder of the chapters, I have divided them into separate parts (as an entire chapter in one post would be ridiculously long).  Today, I present Part I of Chapter 2 entitled, “Things to Come.”  It introduces two of my favorite NPCs: a zealous and fanatical leader of a Pelor cult and his best friend, an atheistic grandmage of a revered arcane order.  This chapter takes place about one year before the campaign begins.

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This summer marks a big, two-year anniversary for me and about 22 of my closest friends.  June will mark the end of a major Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition campaign that I have been writing and working on for nearly three years.  At current count, I have DM’d over 25 player-characters and several dozen NPCs that have helped forge the world of “Destinata.”  Beginning at 1st-level, a group of seven intrepid adventurers set out in a world fraught with danger, treasure, and — yes, of course — a few dragons.  Currently, six heroes set to close the story (they plan to achieve 23rd-level very soon).  We have lost many brave souls over the two-year journey, and I thought it fitting to construct a literary monument in their honor.  I have been chronicling their escapades in narrative form for about eight months now and will present their story here, on Pixelated Geek.

The story begins with a prophecy.

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Chaotic Neutral is the way to go, you’re told.  When you roll up your first D&D character, all of your gaming friends and vets tell you that CN is the perfect alignment because “you can do whatever the hell you want to.”  There’s a lot of free range in Chaotic Neutral; you can decide to help the old lady get her change purse back and then charge her an exorbitant “getting-change-purse-back-reacquisition” fee.  No altruistic or beneficent morality getting in the way, and no true desire to eviscerate the old lady at the same time boiling in your psyche.

Complete gaming freedom it seems.

That is, except for the obvious conundrum of having too much freedom.  Chaotic Neutral (or the new “Unaligned” from D&D 4.0) may seem like an appropriate starting alignment for your characters; however, I think Chaotic Good is a better (well, at least more morally ambiguous) alignment for the first-timers.

(It should be noted that I purposefully am omitting any discussion of evil-aligned characters because I find that it’s difficult to run a campaign with them.  Essentially, everyone who’s not a seasoned veteran thinks any evil alignment means Chaotic Evil.  That is, everyone acts like The Joker, and the chaos is just overwhelming and dismantling to any hope of a compelling story.)

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Though I’d be absolutely terrified if a Beholder Ultimate Tyrant slid down my chimney on the cool morn of 25 December, I’d still be intrigued as to what he brought me in his Handy Haversack of toys.  Before being petrified, poisoned, set on fire, frozen, electrocuted, and turned to undead, I’d revel in the hearty bounty which he bestowed upon me.  Wizards of the Coast has just announced its holiday gift guide of D&D products!  Check out the large pic after the break and see if you can ask good ol’ Tenta-claus for something sweet this holiday season.

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This past week, Wizards of the Coast launched its new character builder for Dungeons & Dragons.  The new layout is sleek and stylish and provides an easy-to-learn user interface for all your character building needs.  Check out the visual tour off of their main website here.  I’ll have a review of all of its ins and outs next week.

Last week, we talked about not judging ourselves for what we can and cannot do. This week, you get the fun stuff, noting what you can do and building off of that with your skills.

Like in every RPG, the basis of your skills starts off in your ability scores. I would like you to give yourself bonuses, starting off with 10+0 as a base score. You don’t have certain a limit of points to allocate; you can put in as much as needed. Benchmarks are: 10/11, normal adult; 12/13, above average (+1); 14/15, well above average (+2); 16-17, gifted (+3); and going all the way to 24-25, best ever peak of human capacity (+7). Be honest with yourself: your wisdom score isn’t 25 and you know it. Give yourself the normal six abilities STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, and CHA. Honestly, I would play a bit on the humble side for all of these.

Example:

Name: Justin Dean

STR: 14 (About 175 pounds is a heavy load; I know that from picking up roommates and squating them) +2

DEX: 12 (I can balance decently) +1

CON: 14 (I don’t get sick often) +2

INT: 15 (I am not dumb) +2

WIS: 14 (I am foolish but I try) +2

CHA: 16 (Apparently the same score as Han Solo according to the Star Wars RPG BUT we all know Han’s is much higher) +3

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[Side note before this article begins: my brain right now is computing all things Starcraft 2, which I've been playing basically non-stop for three days.  It's... quite possibly the best game I've ever played.  I just thought you all should know that.  And go buy SC2.  It will change your life.  En taro Adun!]

Ahem.  Anyway…

We’ve all been there: deeply engrossed in an RPG’s story when along comes Benjy, the happy-go-lucky town mischief-maker with a zip in his step and nothing but trouble up his sleeve.  He takes a liking to your party and wants to adventure with the big boys and bring home the loot to further his collection of Kobold skulls and wax candy.  The party becomes enamored with lil ol’ Benjy and invites him on an innocuous fact-finding mission.  Then – splurt — Benjy’s face goes missing after an errant crossbow bolt flies from a trap your rogue failed to spot, as he was just too busy fashioning a dagger out of puppy bones and intimidation checks.  The party mourns the loss of Benjy and has a memorial service for him.  The DM is ready to move on when one of the party members lets loose a volley of in-game tears and blurts out, “But he was so young!  Benjy!  No!”

What.

They loved him.  However, in your mind, you’re thinking, “But they only knew the kid for a day in-game.  Dubya tee eff?!”  Therein lies the problem, though.  Your players will fall in love with your NPCs if you give them any mote of characterization.  The players will even like hating the NPCs that you set up as big ol’ bags of crap that use snarkiness and bad attitudes to stand in the way of their adventuring.  Today, I want to talk to you all out there in table-top land about the NPC and how your characters get attached to them.  You think you’ve created a plot device; little did you know that you may have created one of your players’ next spouses. Read On

It was epic.  Really.  That is the only word that I can use to describe what transpired the other night (Monday) at my house between the hours of 7:30 PM and 1:00 AM.  I attempted an experiment that I have always wanted to try: combine two D&D groups — whose campaigns both occur in the same world/timeline — into one epic final battle night.  For a year, I have been DM’ing a campaign with some friends of mine on Monday nights.  Furthermore, I have been running the “Team C” game for about six months now (the members of which got a three-week exclusive article, which begins here).  Both parties exist in the same world and, recently, were even traipsing through the Pyramid of Shadows together, the module of which I used loosely and fit into my overarching story.  Of course, seeing as how the Pyramid of Shadows phases in and out of time/dimensional space, they could both exist in the pyramid at the same time and not run into each other.  That is, until they set things right by reviving an NPC that was supposed to be dead forever.  Totally the idea of the Monday night group and one of the best RP sessions I’ve ever had.  It should be noted that much of the mythology and story I’m presenting to you is not D&D canon; it is based on many variations on themes within the D&D omniverse that I have composed.

(Side note: right now, I’m playing the slow, sad music I played at the end of the night and am almost tearing up thinking about the past year…yeah, yeah I know, super sappy but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t attached to these characters and their stories…gah)

Anyway.

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